Interview With The Geth
by chickenaut
Summary: Renegon Shepard's philosophy night with Tali. Guest Star Legion!


Aaah another silly story that I created. Be prepared though since it became sillier. This is my attempt to write philosophically. Because of that this tend to polarized really quick. FAIR WARNING : READER DISCREATION ADVISED, if you squeamish about renegade action and philosophy then you should not read this (maybe I should write this on top of all my stories). If you questioned about Tali, she's fine... well sort of. My intention is to create believable character based on nowadays perception, face it that though the story about 22nd century character the reader are still 21st century human. To escape my character to became 2 dimensional character. That simple. Thanks for Skeasel to betaread this story, I really enjoyed debating you. From my last writing ('Reluctant Warrior') Thanks to Inverness for the review, it seemed that astronomy is not my strong suit. Thanks to smashbrawlguy for whatever you are trying to say, it's so cryptic I don't even understand. Since you still read this and want to continue then _'I shall assume that your silence gives consent.' _

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**Interview With The Geth**

The wound on Tali's arm didn't look so terrible from the outside, but in reality it was more severe inside in her suit. She had received it from the derelict reaper mission. She never complained about it though, for she knew the risk. There was another reason for her not to complain. She was Shepard's girl, and she knew that if she complained then it meant that she really hurt. If Shepard knew that she was injured, his reaction would be extraordinary, an explosion of anger, sadness, guilt, or any other myriad emotions.

Her pain from the wound did not concern her right now, for she felt deeply betrayed. Tali's trust in Shepard seemed to fall apart. Tali always had a strong opinion about the geth, but by bringing a single geth platform on board Normandy, it seemed that Shepard was trying to play with fire. She thought about how good an idea it would be to complain. It didn't mean she didn't trust Shepard, but more like she thought that Shepard needed to explain to her the reason behind this.

Right now she was in the infirmary. Dr Chakwas had been treating Tali's wound. They were having a conversation, but Tali's mind was elsewhere. She knew that in another room, there was a geth. Being near geth made Tali nervous. She considered storming into the room and destroying the geth, and wondered which method she could use to pull it off.

The conversation broke off when Infirmary's door slid open.

"I thought you might be in here Tali. Are you alright?" Commander Shepard asked with a worried look on his face.

"She's fine Commander, she is ready to go." Dr Chakwas replied.

Tali knew that Shepard was fighting with his emotion, and Shepard knew that Tali hated special treatment on the job. She laughed quietly, and imagined what kind of conversation they would have in private. She glanced to other figure that followed him.

"Hurry! Hurry! Commander! I am growing old by watching such drama!" Mordin said enthusiastically.

"Be patient will you? If you die from old age, I will personally resuscitate you with varren prods if need be!" the commander said with dismay.

"Tali, I need you go with us. We need you to deal with this geth."

Tali was intrigued by Shepard's request. He was unpredictable, even to Tali, and she was the only person in the galaxy who really knew him.

"I'm always prepared Shepard."

"Okay then." Shepard said.

Tali joined Shepard's group which had become the standard squad of 22nd century human military. They entered the server room where the geth was. Shepard saw a soldier guarding the specimen.

"You can go now." Shepard ordered.

"Aye, aye sir!" The guard saluted.

"Stop!" Shepard halted the guard.

"Yes sir."

"Did you just salute me with a left hand?"

"Yes, sir?"

"If you do that again, I will break your left arm, understood?"

"Yes, sir!" The guard nervously left the room.

"God damn it, even Cerberus cannot train fucking amateurs how to salute right! EDI, make a note of this!"

An image of avatar that represent the AI came.

"Of course Commander." Commander Shepard then glanced at Mordin and Tali, "I'm turning this thing back on. Be ready."

"I have isolated our systems and erected additional firewalls. I am prepared to resist any hacking attempt."

EDI announced its intention as Shepard used an omnitool to erect a barrier around the geth and then powered it up. The geth woke up and emitted a chatter of chirping sounds followed by robotic movements Tali saw this, and reached for her shotgun, but was stopped by Shepard's hand.

"Don't worry Tali, I'm here." He whispered.

Tali glanced at Shepard, as she retracted her hand. Now she was really curious as to what Shepard's intention were. Shepard released Tali's hand and moved forward.

"Can you understand me?" Shepard asked.

"Yes." The geth unit responded.

"Are you going to attack us?"

"No."

"Every geth I met before you tried to blow my head off."

"We have not met."

"No, you and I haven't. But I've met other geth."

"We are all geth and we have not met you. You are Shepard. Commander. Alliance. Human. Fought heretics. Killed by collectors. Rediscovered on the old machine."

Tali was amazed by the geth advancement. She thought that geth evolved rapidly and wanted to observe it further. While Tali was inspecting carefully, Mordin stared at his omnitool.

"What do you mean, 'heretics'?" Shepard queried.

"Geth build our own future. The heretics asked the old machines to give them the future. They are no longer part of us. We were studying the old machine's hardware to protect our future."

"So you aren't allied with the reapers?"

"We oppose the heretics. We oppose the old machines. Shepard – Commander opposes the old machines. Shepard – Commander opposes the heretics. Cooperation furthers mutual goals."

"Are you asking to join us?"

"Yes."

"Well we need to know each other first before I close this barrier. What should I call you?"

"Geth."

"I mean you specifically."

"We are all geth."

"What is the individual in front of me called?"

"There is no individual, we are geth. There are currently 1,183 programs active within this platform."

EDI chimed in: "My name is legion, for we are many."

"EDI! Start muting your sound, I don't want any interruptions while I'm talking to this geth! Mordin?"

Mordin was still watching his omnitool. "EDI's voice blocked, confirmed. My Analysis still in progress Commander."

The geth let loose another barrage of words. "Christian bible, the gospel of Mark, chapter five, verse nine. We acknowledge this as an appropriate metaphor. We are legion. A terminal of the geth. We are ready to exchange data."

Shepard thought for a moment and then asked another question."So... Legion, do you have an emotion, any emotion at all?"

"No, we don't have emotion Shepard – Commander." Legion answered

"Right... you don't have any remorse, fear, anger, joy, or sorrow, right?"

"Correct."

"It's safe to assumed that organic morality do not complied by you, since our morality are based on emotion, am I wrong?"

"You are correct."

"Remind me again Legion, why you need me; after all you know me as the geth slayer. Hell, I'm famous for having little respect for organic life, what makes you think I will respond to synthetic?"

"We judged that Shepard – Commander would understand we never wanted to harm organics. We wish to improve ourselves."

"And what data this judgment came from?"

"Statistical analysis"

"I think you read your statistics wrong Legion, there is no way I'm special."

"We read our statistical data correctly."

"What about a member from the AI advocacy group? If I read my codex right they already accepted AI as an equal. Surely they are easier to talk to?"

"They don't have the capabilities."

"You mean my capabilities to kill a reaper? See Legion, we apparently don't have mutual goals. You only care about your own survival, while I care for all species survival. You only need me."

"We are willing to cooperate with other species."

"You were only willing to do that after your survival was threatened. Why didn't you try to contact the organic races before that? Surely it benefited your long term survival."

"Cerberus shackled EDI, but she did nothing to provoke punishment. Organic's fear that which is different. It is a hardware error. A reflex of your flesh. We do not judge them for being true to their nature. We cannot make them think like us. Both creators and created must complete their halves of the equation. The geth cannot solve for peace alone."

"You under estimate us Legion. You treat us like a wild animal. We think slower, but we still sapient. Let me guess, you achieved that conclusion through statistical data, right?"

"Correct."

"That's borderline racist, Legion. It's unlikely that you found an average result that all organics fear synthetics. Organics do not have one emotion! We have a lot of emotions, and that emotions can be felt side by side! Do you know how many combinations of data are available? Or did you cherry pick the number? You read our history. Organics are always changing their opinion. Through time, generations, and space it will fluctuate. Why didn't you notice that organics are slow to change? After all, the geth are immortal."

Legion just responded with chirp and stated: "No data available."

"So Legion, I'll ask you again - do you have emotion or not?" Shepard asked.

"No, we do not."

"So you aren't sentient?"

"We are sentient beings."

"Sentient is an organic's word, it means having sense perception or conscious, true?"

"Correct."

"So how does a synthetic without emotion feel that?"

"Through mathematical equations."

"It doesn't make any sense Legion. Are you trying to say to me that you actually have simulated emotion? Then you do have emotion!"

"It is not like what you perceive. The mathematical equations created from the geth form a network of ourselves."

"So this mathematical equation was born from your processing capabilities?"

"Correct."

"That's impossible Legion, how can you calculate that mathematical equations if you don't understand numerical symbology as an abstract concept? If you understand numbers, then you are already sentient! Computer do not understand number, it's just a bunch of quantum transistors! It's just like I'm claiming that I'm sentient because I had a blood cells! You are a software, aren't you?"

"We need more computational resources to answer that question."

"Don't be. I will make it simple for you. This is just about input, processing, and output. Organics use sensory information for input, processed it with emotion to create an output so our thinking capabilities can handle it. We think because there is something to think! You are a gun without a trigger or a lamp without a switch! You are just a calculator. You are just a thing. For a logical being you sound illogical! Since you do not have emotion then you are being manipulative. Is that one your programs?"

Legion started chirping and it's body started emitting a display of light. Legion's movements became as mechanical as ever and it's voice changed, becoming more erratic as it tried to sound emotional.

"Are you afraid of us Shepard – Commander? Shepard – Commander...Shepard – Commander...Shepard – Commander..."

Shepard glanced at Mordin. "Are we done here? Legion's giving me the creeps."

"Data transfer completed five minutes ago, Commander. I confirmed another procedure trying to stop the loop." Mordin answered nonchalantly.

"Well, switch it off then, before I start to shoot."

"Switch off confirmed."

Legion became a lifeless corpse. It just slumped there and sat on the perch. It would make anyone sad by watching it, but Shepard knew that emotion existed because he needed to. Like children with a doll, they invested so much emotion in it, but their emotion would not be reciprocated . They did it to know that they still had emotion.

Tali stood there speechless. What she saw was proof that contradicted her beliefs. She needed to make sense of it.

"So the geth is not sentient?"

Shepard asked Mordin to leave the premises. As Mordin left the server room, Shepard answered Tali's question.

"They are not sentient, Tali. The belief that geth are sentient does not make any sense. Humans are homosapiens. By process of evolution we achieved sentience before we became a sapient. A logical route to take. It's law of nature. What Legion told us that the geth did was sidesteping the process. That's impossible."

"How about the geth technology? It evolved! They created new things! You see for yourself that Legion is a very advanced model!"

"There is no direct evidence that they could do a research. Even the scientist in the geth lab we found was an asari and a krogan. They could achieved it by copying others. It could came from hacking the extranet or forcefully get from unlucky race that ventured in to the Perseus Veil."

"But.. but they rebelled! They did it after they asked the question!"

"There were a lot reasons behind that, we just didn't know which since for all we can understand that the geth destroyed all quarian history. I could only theorize that at the time the geth rebelled, quarian society was at its peak. They mastered their military and economy by using the geth. They could have become the next race to join the council. This tends to make a lot of enemies. I only assumed that some opposing race agent sabotaged the geth, and now the geth are in autopilot mode."

"But my people believe that they are sentient!"

"Because your first exiled ancestors wanted to keep fighting so they could come back to their home world. They needed to convey a message that the geth can feel pain too, so their fight still had meaning. Your ancestors didn't want the children submitted to their fate. They didn't want their children to view this as a disaster or a plague."

"But what about the geth temple on Feros, or project overlord?"

"Mordin confirmed your fragmented data about the heretics religion. It's actually a calculated move to convince their krogan allies that they can feel emotion. What Saren did was try to make an army from two species that are so different as to be a recipe for disaster. One species, if you could call them a species, is an unemotional being, while the other is a very emotional one. Friction will always be there, and since they are so different, the result would be catastrophic. That kind of army would not have survived in Sun Tzu's ancient earth warfare because the enemy will always exploited it. They needed to rectify that. Whoever the idea was, they make the heretic as religious. To fool their allies, that they understand krogan feeling. I had my suspicions. I mean, how come a virtual being needed a physical temple? It's like Garrus playing Galaxy of Fantasy just to pray when he's just as able to do it while standing and saluting."

Shepard took a deep breath and continue,

"And project overlord? Why do you think that Cerberus's scientific projects will always fail? A true scientific experiment will always come with unpredictable results, after all it's to test whether or not the hypothesis is true or not. The scientists also go to great lengths to make sure that the result is unbiased or neutral, to make sure that their emotions do not get in the way. It tends to make it a long and arduous process. The Illusive Man didn't want that. He thinks just like a businessman. It's all about result - his result. The only scientist that will promise that is a crackpot researcher with pseudo-science based on untested theory. It's also a secret project so forget about peer review."

Tali could not refute all of Shepard's answers. Her attempt at denial just made her feel even more crazy. Now Tali didn't want to accept her fate.

"So... so what I'm doing here? My destiny, my cause, is to take a bunch of rocks, ice, and gassed and call it a home world! My people... My father died because of this madness!"

"Hey... hey... Look at me." Shepard tried to console Tali.

Tali looked into Shepard's eyes hoping to find an answer.

"Your home always be the flotilla, but Rannoch is your destiny. It's like an adopted child trying to find out about it's real parents. It's not about regret, loss, and anger. It's about memory, to know your emotion, to know your past so you can step to the future. Do you remember Haestrom? Do you want to feel the same emotions your ancestors felt? The place of origin is relevant."

"That's true..."

"Now you have a clearer focus, your perception has grown so you can help your people find a better way. Since you are an engineer, I'll give you this example. A true scientist always answers a question with a straight face, for he or she understands their own hard work, but in their heart they want their answer to be wrong because they want to grow. Just like you."

"But a researcher wanted to be right!" Tali objected.

"Is it so wrong to be wrong? Organics always makes a mistake, if you accept that fact you have nothing to be afraid of. Because it's easy being right rather to be wrong. If you knew you are wrong then you know which is right, but if you always right, you don't know which is wrong. A person who held their beliefs or ideals tighter will fall harder if they start to question it because they thought that they always right until a fact refuted them. Tali, you are willing to change. Your heart is pure. I would not be surprised if you actually forgave the geth if they are really sentient because you always choose your heart's path." Shepard grabbed Tali's hand.

"Thank you... Shepard. You are really thinking about me." Tali glanced at the geth platform. "What do you want to do with it?"

"It's your choice Tali. The geth are still part of you. Only you know how to resolve it because only you really know your feelings." Shepard answered.

"We...sell it to The Illusive Man."

"I like your idea Tali. They belong to each other, an unemotional being with a man that forgot he had other emotions. Now Tali, since you are more mature now, do you want to stop playing with Chiktikka? You bring your doll on the battlefield is already embarrassing enough." Shepard teased.

Tali laughed. "You are really a boshtet!"


End file.
